Side B, 1998When I arrived in Cleveland during the winter of ’97, this guys name was on everyone’s tongues, he (along with Thieveland vet, Sleepy C) was the pride of the local rave scene--- still is to a large degree, to those that know anyways; a true renaissance man, KC has been involved with DJing, laying beats, and throwing parties since the mid ‘90s, mainly around the metro Cleveland area but he’s spun all throughout the greater Midwest. Although I’ve seen him spin virtually every kind of beats under the sun, KC was mainly known for throwing down some of the hardest, bangin’ist, straight up menacing jungle sets you’ve ever heard, often on more than 2 turntables; up around that area, the party scene was really hitting its peak around this time, with even the most meager of flyers guaranteeing you a minimum crowd of 500 kids, and Kev was out all the time. This tape is highly representative of the prevailing sound back then: DARK AS FUCK! When it sounds like an alarm is sounding to notify human beings of impending doom, at around 6:12 into this mix, you must feel that when this stuff was being played inside crumbling warehouses on the East (see: not white) side of Cleveland, this vibration was no mere warning (see: crackhead in the alley with a baseball bat). That was what truly mirrored the ‘60s about the rave scene, apart from the rampant drug use: it was our naïve sense of abandon, playing with fire, and rather than recoiling like any rational human being, we reveled in its searing flames. Mind you, this was in sharp contrast to the Florida scene I came up in, with its cartoon characters and big smiles; no, Cleveland was more like: camo, hoods, and hat brims pulled real fuckin’ low (I’m not kidding, I actually knew some party kids by their hats alone, never having truly seen any amount of face above their tightly grinning mouths). It was a wild horse we rode, and though over a decade beyond my ass is still chapped in places, I’m eternally grateful to have been there.
